Share this article
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse on JPM Coin: Other Banks Won't Use It
Ripple's CEO gave JPMorgan qualified praise for developing its own cryptocurrency before dismissing the product's usefulness.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 8:57 a.m. Published Mar 6, 2019, 9:45 p.m.
Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of San Francisco blockchain startup Ripple, gave JP Morgan Chase qualified praise Wednesday for creating its own stablecoin, before dismissing the product's likelihood of adoption by other banks and questioning its usefulness.
During a fireside chat at the Chamber of Digital Commerce's D.C. Blockchain Summit in Washington, Garlinghouse said he thinks it's "great" to have major financial players like JP Morgan "leaning in."
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
But, he quickly added:
"That’s the only nice thing I’m going to say about this."
Indeed, Garlinghouse, whose company has been courting financial institutions to use its distributed ledger technology (DLT) for payments – including products that utilize the cryptocurrency XRP – promptly cast doubt on the prospects for the recently announced JPM Coin.
At another conference last week, Garlinghouse recalled, "This guy from Morgan Stanley was interviewing me, I said ‘So, is Morgan Stanley going to use the JPM Coin?’ And he said ‘probably not.’ So, well is Citi going to use the JPM Coin? Is BBVA? Is PNC? And the answer is no."
Hence, he suggested, a bank creating its own stablecoin risks recreating the very problems that DLT is supposed to solve.
"So, does that mean we’re going to have all these different coins? Are we back to where we are with lack of interoperability? I don’t get it."
Garlinghouse even started to sound like a blockchain industry critics when he wondered aloud what the point would be of tokenizing fiat currency when it remains on the books of a single entity.
"If you give them a dollar for deposits, they’ll give you a JPM Coin that you can then move within the JPM ledger. Wait a minute, just use the dollar!" he said. "I don’t understand. If you’re just moving within the JPM ledger, and it has to be dollar-to-dollar, one-to-one backing, I don't understand what problem that solves."
He wrapped up his comments about the subject on a diplomatic note, however, concluding:
"Now, back to my first answer, if it solves the first [problem] of JPM leaning into crypto, yay. That’s all I got."
Brad Garlinghouse photo by Nikhilesh De for CoinDesk
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Crypto Markets Today: Bitcoin Slips Back Toward Danger Zone Ahead of Fed Decision
Bitcoin surrendered gains from earlier in the week, fell back toward $90,000 as traders braced for Wednesday’s Federal Reserve rate decision.
What to know:
- A 25 basis-point interest-rate cut has been priced in for weeks, and risk assets could drop on the news if no fresh catalysts emerge.
- Tokens like HYPE, STRK, QNT and KAS fell 6%–9% in 24 hours
- CoinMarketCap’s altcoin-season index sits at a cycle low of 18/100.
- Bitcoin is down 20% over 90 days and more than half of the top-100 tokens have fallen at least 40%. FET and TIA are among the worst performers while ZEC, DASH, BNB and BCH stand out as rare stabilizers.
Top Stories
